The 8 Skills You Need to Know to Become a Mobile App Developer

For a considerable time, Apple has been the target of criticism that its devices, despite being luxurious and innovative, do not have many options for applications. However, over the last two years, Apple has made tremendous changes in the developer environment, which now provides truly competitive opportunities for everyone who wants to create apps. In this article, we’ll tell you about the 8 skills required to become a mobile app developer.

1) Swift

Swift is an application development language created by Apple. It was introduced as an alternative to Objective-C with XCode 6 at WWDC 2014. And was initially announced as Cocoa Touch in June 2013.

Despite all its popularity among developers around the world, there are still those who consider it unreliable, unstable, and “half-baked”. At the same time, many developers admit that Swift has a lot of advantages.

As proof look at these figures: according to Stack Overflow. Every day more than 100,000 people visit forums dedicated to this language. And there are currently more than 13 000 questions about it. In addition, in 2015 it was named the best development language by IEEE. And, finally, the number of books on this programming language just explodes. There are already dozens of publications devoted exclusively to Swift!

In conclusion. We can say that from the point of view of the potential mobile developer market you should learn Swift if you want to stay afloat.

2) Objective-C

Objective-C is not obsolete yet – it is still used by many developers and has a significant number of applications available in the App Store.

Even though it has not undergone significant changes like Swift. Objective-C is worth learning because it will be easier for you to find a job. Especially if your previous work experience includes creating apps for iOS 8.

3) Android Studio

Android Studio (former Intellij idea) – development environment intended for writing programs in Java with the use of Android SDK.

Despite the fact that there are other integrated development environments that have nothing to do with Google, such as Eclipse or XCode. They support programming in Java and can be successfully combined with Android Studio. Moreover, this tool allows you to test and run your project on a virtual emulator or on a real Android device.

As an alternative, you can use the program with the same name (Android Studio) developed by JetBrains. Which is basically the same thing but requires payment. Many mobile app developers say that it is worth paying for this application because of its free updates and regular support.

4) SQLite Database

SQLite is used in almost all mobile applications to store structured data of any kind – from texts and numbers through images, videos and sounds.

It should be noted that SQLite has an open license. So it can be used even in commercial projects without worrying about copyright infringement.

To work with databases, you need some knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL), though if you have ever written a simple MySQL query, then you already know the basics of SQLite.

5) REST API

REST API is an architectural style for web services that are used to transfer data between applications.

For example, Google Maps use API to display weather or currency data on a map, but at the same time, this API does not allow you to change the GPS coordinates of your phone.

Developer API for iOS applications can be created using several programming languages. For example, REST API for iOS apps built in Java, Objective-C, and Swift. Therefore, if you want to learn how to work with API – it’s best to start with one of these three programming languages. Otherwise, you will need longer to study another documentation.

6) Design patterns

Design patterns are standard solutions to recurring problems in object-oriented programming.

When programmers create new applications, they most often use the same design pattern solutions as in similar programs created earlier. Therefore, it makes sense to learn not only how to create an application, but also how other mobile app developer with more experience do it – this will help you save time and avoid mistakes.

Let’s look at some of the most popular patterns :

Model-View-Controller (MVC) helps separate the user interface into three parts: views, models, and controllers. It is best suited for complex applications that require logic with business objects independent of the UI.

Delegation encourages better encapsulation beating tasks from one object to another. This pattern is also used to operate on two-way data binding. As well as executing some code when an event occurs.

Observer simplifies the implementation of a publish/subscribe mechanism, which allows objects to interact with each other indirectly.

Finally, Singleton is a design pattern that allows you to create a unique instance of a class having only one object in the whole application. It’s worth noting that this solution is often criticized by mobile app developer and recommended to avoid its use whenever possible.

In order not to reinvent the wheel and save time while learning basic programming techniques, it makes sense for iOS developers from the intermediate level to be familiar with basic common patterns.

7) Git

Git – is a free and open-source version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

In addition, it can be used as a bug tracker to track all the errors reported by users of the application. You can also use Git as a backup system. So it’s worth learning at least the basic commands to start working with this tool. As well as knowing its interface.

8) JSON

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation ) is a lightweight data-interchange format that uses text for data objects consisting of attribute-value pairs. And array structures containing values ​​of any type nested within any other type. It allows you to quickly create user interface elements using JavaScript.

Many applications use JSON because it is very compact and therefore requires fewer resources than XML or CSV.

The adoption of JSON for iOS applications depends on your preferences and the requirements of the future application. If you go to work as a freelance mobile app developer. Then you must definitely learn the basics of this format.